


Synecdoche

by heart_to_pen_to_paper



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (it is jon. to be perfectly clear. :( ), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Archivist Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, after his personality is scooped out of himself to make way for an eldritch fear entity, and when i saw it. lemme tell you, au where jon gets less human but no more monstery after the Watcher’s Crown, getting to know your boyfriend, i started this FAR before ‘jonathan “jon” sims | the archivist’ became a tag, major character death is in the first chapter and off-screen and also mostly figurative??, tags will be added as i update probably, while backpacking!, … you’ll see
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27639458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heart_to_pen_to_paper/pseuds/heart_to_pen_to_paper
Summary: syn·ec·do·chen.a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versaMartin and the Archivist save the world.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	Synecdoche

**Author's Note:**

> I started this… WAY before season five came out, and it was only ever meant to be self-indulgent nonsense I did not expect or even hope would come true in any capacity in canon. Then it accidentally became one of the longest things I’d ever written. And somewhere between that I got ATTACHED.
> 
> So, uh, this is actually outlined in its majority?? That doesn’t mean it’s anywhere close to DONE, but I finished editing chapter one out of sheer impatience with myself and the euphoria was so great that you could not have stopped me from posting this short of brutal-pipe-murder levels of drastic action. So all that’s to say that there WILL be more, just not any time soon :’)
> 
> This is NOT the first tma fic I thought I’d be posting, so I really hope you enjoy!! :DDD

The air is thick with the scent of rot and iron and the ground gives in a way grass should _not_ and the sky is _wrong,_ but the only thought in Martin’s mind as he tears through fields that barely minutes ago were endless green and now are something else entirely is _Jon, Jon, Jon,_ thudding through his chest in time with his heartbeat.

He feels sick somewhere deeper than his stomach, like his very bones are rebelling against this tainted scene. And above even that clamors the desperate needs to find Jon. He needs to find him, to make sure he’s okay, to- he needs to find him.

He hadn’t been far from the safehouse when it- whatever _it_ was- started. He’d been frowning at the rapidly darkening sky, wondering at how quickly the weather had deteriorated, but he hadn’t been overly worried until the cows beside him started lowing.

 _It’s just the thunder scaring them,_ he'd tried to reassure himself. _It’s nothing._ He’d kept telling himself that even as he’d turned back to the cabin and started at a pace a little too urgent to be called casual, even as the thunder got louder without any lightning to accompany it, even as the pressure in the air built up far past the point it could plausibly blamed on the storm. _It’s just the thunder._

Martin exhaled in relief- for what exactly, he couldn’t say- when the cabin came into view. He’d go inside, where Jon would be there waiting, probably freshly done with the statement and readying dinner, and Jon would smile at him teasingly but so, so fondly and laugh at him for worrying over nothing. And it _would_ be nothing, and then he could relax.

And- and then it all went wrong.

Martin wished that he could say that he’d blacked out in sheer horror, that he remembered it only in flashes, that it didn’t make perfect, awful _sense._ But he couldn’t. Something kept him upright, kept him _watching,_ and suddenly he knew with a bone-deep certainty that everyone, everywhere, no matter what they were doing, was witnessing this impossible, terrible sight, and everyone

was

_afraid._

So Martin stared up in horror as the world turned itself inside out, and the sky stared _back._ It blistered with _eyes_ , eyes of every size and color, all roving wildly- all except for one. One eye dwarfed all the rest, and though it was too vast to give the impression of focusing on anything, Martin _knew_ it was looking directly at _him._

But that wasn’t what terrified him about it.

No, he was looking at the ring of color stretching around a pupil so large he was put in mind of a black hole. It was brown, just brown- no heterochromia, no gold flecks, nothing strange about it at all except for the fact that it was the iris of a _giant eye in the sky._

Martin would know that eye anywhere. He ran.

* * *

Miraculously, the safehouse seems untouched, not that Martin can convince himself that that’s necessarily a good sign, and he hesitates for only a second before barreling through the door.

The weight of the… the Eye looking down on him doesn’t lift when he steps over the threshold, doesn’t quite lessen; it just _changes_ in a way Martin can’t quantify as good or bad. He’d long since grown used to it- it was really just part and parcel of working at the Institute for so long, forget living with an Archivist- enough so that even the new, awful presence outside wasn’t _overwhelming._ But the feeling of it settles differently on his skin, now, where before the weight of Watching had always been relatively gentle within these walls. It’s heavy and unrelenting, reminiscent of the way Jon’s gaze gets on worse days-

_Jon._

Martin doesn’t even try searching through the cabin. He thunders up the stairs to the dusty attic without sparing so much as a sideways glance at the other rooms. For half a second he thinks about the noises he’d heard outside and wonders about the wisdom of making so much noise himself, but he shoves that thought away firmly. There’d be time for that later, after he’d found Jon and demanded to know what was happening and _why_ and-

He doesn’t know what he was expecting to find when he finally reaches the attic, but the rush of relief at seeing Jon standing is so dizzying his knees go weak. He revels in it for just a moment, but it drains out of him as the seconds tick by and Jon doesn’t turn to him, back remaining firmly to the doorway. With a chill Martin thinks of his sudden certainty that everything going on outside was connected to Jon, a surety that had sunk into his bones along with the force of the Eye’s scrutiny. Dread crawls down his throat to rest in his stomach.

Martin forces himself to blink away his panic and take in more of the scene. There, the shattered glass at Jon’s feet to match the open window. There, Jon’s straight back but utterly still hands. There, the fallen chair. There, the abandoned piece of paper on the table. The fear in his stomach coils like a living thing.

Now more than ever Martin wants to run to Jon, but he finds he can’t bring himself to step into the room. That oppressive feeling increases sharply just on its threshold, and his knees are still shaking. He calls out to Jon instead. “Jon! Jon, are you alright?” Nothing. Martin switches tactics. “Jon, something- something’s gone wrong.” Jon doesn’t even twitch, and the dread snarls and grows claws. “I don’t know if it’s just _here,_ or, or if it’s everywhere-”

If Jon wasn’t standing, Martin might think he was asleep for all he reacts. His voice breaks. “Jon, I’m scared.” And there is _still no response,_ and Martin’s almost angry for all that tears are threatening at the corners of his eyes, he knows it’s bad but why won’t Jon just turn _around-_

“I’m sorry, Martin,” Jon’s voice comes, and everything in Martin goes cold. Jon finally turns around to face him, and Martin’s breath catches and rattles a death knell in his throat. “I’m sorry.”

Familiar face, familiar voice, familiar words, but the tone is all wrong. The look in Jon’s eyes is all wrong. _Jon’s eyes_ are all wrong.

“Jon?”

“Jonathan Sims is no more, and for that I’m sorry.”

The silence that follows trembles under its own weight. Martin finds himself standing before a figure who is indisputably no longer his boyfriend. Their eyes do not lift from his, and he finds himself powerless to look away. He thinks of the horrors he’d glimpsed coming into being outside that broken window and thinks he’d brave them all if it meant seeing something familiar in those glowing eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed!!!! And if you did, maybe check me out on [tumblr](https://princess-of-purple-prose.tumblr.com/)! I'm always up to chat!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed!!!! And if you did, maybe check me out on [tumblr](https://princess-of-purple-prose.tumblr.com/)! I'm always up to chat!


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